Skip to main content
Dessert

Transparent Pudding

A light, lemony custard baked in a pie crust, topped with meringue.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Transparent Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Make the filling

  1. Cream the butter and sugar together.

  2. Beat in the egg yolks, lemon juice, grated lemon rind, nutmeg, and brandy.

  3. Gently fold in the egg whites last.

  4. For a nicer texture, beat 4 egg whites into the mixture.

Bake and top

  1. Bake the mixture in an open pie crust.

  2. Whip the remaining 4 egg whites with 4 tablespoons of sugar and a little lemon juice to make a meringue.

  3. Spread the meringue over the top of the pie.

  4. Serve cold.

  5. Consider baking in patty pans for individual servings.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Nutmeg + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,311 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Butter + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,127 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Egg yolks enrich and thicken the filling, while whites add air and lift.
Butter
Creamed with sugar, it adds richness and a tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and, creamed with butter, helps trap air.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.
Brandy
Adds aroma and a warm flavour to the filling.
Nutmeg
Contributes a warm, spiced aroma to the filling.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the egg whites last. Egg whites hold air bubbles that give the pudding lift and a light texture. Stirring or beating them hard after folding in deflates those bubbles, leaving a denser result.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sugar, egg, nutmeg, brandy):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Raisinfits about as well
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, egg, nutmeg, brandy. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Lemon CakeLemon Cake228 recipesLemon IceLemon Ice147 recipesLemon SherbetLemon Sherbet103 recipesBrandy PeachesBrandy Peaches68 recipes